Last night I started again on the Spaceship corridor using a new feature in Blender 2.64, ‘Wire Frame’. The new feature works only on faces so if you are starting with a wire frame create your faces, select everything (faces) you want in wire frame and, while in face select mode, <ctrl> + ‘F’, then select ‘Wire Frame’, this then turns all the selected face into a wire frame. You can then increase or decrease the size of the ‘wires’, apply subsurface, shade smooth etc.. Here is a screen shot of what I did last night with an icosphere and a mesh circle filled. This process took less than a minute and the majority of that time was looking at the settings I could change, deleting, start again and adjusting the look.
Please note: The screen shot below does not show the sphere and circle with shade smooth applied.
This release looks to have a great list of additions and improvements.
I tried working on the Spaceship corridor last night and could not insert a loop cut within my model. This maybe a bug or a problem with my model, probably the latter. I’ll start again from scratch (almost) and finish these control panels by Wednesday.
Couldn’t get my mouse to work with Blender at work this morning (IBM mouse, no three button) so I’ll try when I get home. I did get a chance to watch Johnathan Williamson’s video about the additions in the 2.64 release and will put some of those tools to use on the control panels.
I was able to correctly use the knife tool in Blender last night. It was a matter of pressing ‘E’ when I made one cut and continue with the additional cuts. When complete, press ‘E’ then ‘Enter’ to complete the knife tool and all cuts become real edges and vertices which you can the manipulate as need to correct any placement errors. Easy Piesey as Sam Axe would say.
I did not do much last night except for creating the blocks for the next control panels (top and bottom) and tried a little with the knife cut (bmesh) this morning. It did not work like I was hoping because I was using it wrong and not looking at the status line which would have helped a lot. When I arrived at work this morning I watched a brief tutorial by Johnathan Williamson on the knife tool and found my mistakes. I will be back at it when I get home with my new found information.
I worked a little on the Spaceship Corridor last night, using the tips by Andrew for adding the control panels and it lowered the file size considerably from 10.2meg to 2.6meg. This was done by duplicating the mesh using <alt> + “d” rather than <shift> +”d” and NOT joining them to the mesh. I also changed the location of the control panels by placing them on the vertical wall and will create some new ones for the lower surface. These panels will all be the same with monitors and key pads for the ‘people’ residing on the spaceship. I am not sure what to do with the upper surface yet.
I was using the Release Candidate of Blender version 2.64 and noticed an increase in speed along with other intangibles I can’t really seem to put my finger on but the experience was a good one. I will put this release candidate through some gyrations I had found to crash the other versions and see how stable this is.
I was able to blend only ‘briefly’ last night because I had downloaded the movie Avatar from iTunes intending to watch just the beginning but it was such a great movie I watch in its entirety and LOVED it!
Here is the new screen shot of the Spaceship Corridor. I spent most of the weekend creating the control panels and I think they look pretty good. Next I will create some monitors that will go on the vertical walls. I think that will polish things off before the floor grating and whatever I decide to place on the overhead panels.
New image for the Temple project with the missing compositing. I had forgotten to link the output of the color balance to the composite node. The next picture is of the corridor as it is coming along so far.
The next items on the list for the Spaceship corridor are the control panels on the left and right bulkhead walls.
I completed the Temple and I am not that happy with the way it turned out. The modeling is great but the compositing (I made a couple of changes), background and materials are what I am not happy about. Those changes will be for he weekend along with the Ocean Scene.
The Spaceship Corridor is coming along with the bulkhead walls finished (for now) and an array modifier added.
Photos: Screen shot of the Final Temple render, screen shot the node group for the Temple render and Spaceship Corridor.
Edit: Just noticed the Vignette is missing from this render, I am going to have to fix this.
I completed part 1 of the Temple tutorial last night and as it turns out the problem I was having with the roof tiles was not a problem at all. The tiles were showing up on the roof but in different orientations for each side of the roof and I was perplexed. I decided to wait, see what he was going to do because things looked different on my computer, try his way or a work around I came up with. As it turns out, my ‘work around’ was actually the way he ended up completing the process. 🙂
So, part 1 is complete and on to part 2 this morning (1:45am again), sky and a light set up so I could get a first look at the cycles render. Here are two pictures showing an internal render with temporary lights set up and a screen shot starting part 2.
Temporary Lights, no textures (Blender Internal)
Starting Part 2, rendering with Cycles. I am actually a little bit farther than this but forgot to take a screen shot before left for work this morning.
This was an early morning for me. I rolled out of bed at 1:45am, turned on computer washed dishes while it was starting because I did not wash them last night and got to working in Blender. I found that some of the different techniques I had used during the modeling of the Temple, even though they worked, did not work with some of his techniques for the tiles on the roof which meant I had to fix things. This turned out to be a good thing as I then realized that I was catching on to all the keyboard shortcuts and modeling tools Blender has without having to look at books or backup in the tutorial. All the information I needed was sitting right in my noggin. This little fact made my day start off great. Tonight I should have all the tiles on the roof and begin the second part of the tutorial, rendering and compositing in cycles. Great morning so far 🙂
The Spaceship corridor is going slowly while I figure out some of my own touches to add to the bulkhead, Sci-Fi gadgets and such.
No additional pictures today, like I said I was just re-modeling and having fun with the new tool set that is embedding itself into my brain.
New site covering miscellaneous activities including my favorite activity: Blender
